Author's Note: While this is a one shot, I still might write a sequel. Not sure yet. Also, I changed the main character's name after I wrote the story, so sorry if I missed any changes.
If you've read my other stories I shouldn't have to repeat this, but I will for those who haven't: I fricken suck at coming up with titles. Ok? But I thought this one fits, so... Yeah. Oh, and just to make one thing clear: It's Valentines day in this story. Again. XD Don't worry, the only thing that's even slightly Valentines Day-ish is when they mention it in the beginning, I promise. Enjoy. (Or not, whatever. :)
H(eart)P(oints)
I skipped gleefully to the phone before it even rang, picked it up and stared at the display, waiting for the caller ID to show. My heart skipped a beat when I read his name and I nearly broke the phone smashing in the TALK button.
"Hey," I said into the mouthpiece, forcing a calm tone into my voice to suppress my fluttering nerves.
"Hey, happy disgustingly-mushy-commercial-holiday-made-so-the-rich-can-get-richer day. What's up?"
I laughed a little awkwardly and almost regretted sending him a card. Almost.
"Nothing much. Did anything special happen today?" I asked, secretly referring to the possibility of him getting my card.
"Not really…Well, except for when this, like, huge, smelly, fat-"
"No," I said, impatiently, "Did you get anything in the mail?" A little more obvious now...
"Uh, a couple of movies you said you wanted to watch… That's why I was calling. If you come over we can watch them, or I can bring them to your place when I get out of the shower. Haha, this one-"
"No! Wait, no- I do want to come watch the movies, but you're saying you didn't get anything special in the mail? But I sent you something! DO YOU EVEN REALIZE HOW RARE THAT IS?! UGH, ALL THE TIME I SPENT MAKING A CARD FOR YOU ON THIS ANNOYING, WRETCHED, HOLIDAY! NOW WHAT?!" I finished my little rant with a perfectly unattractive growl into the phone, and then realized how quiet it had become on the other line.
"Uh…Matt?" I asked uncertainly after a moment. There was laughter on the other end, and I felt like crying and hanging up and punching him repeatedly.
Instead, I yelled into the phone, "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?! THIS IS HARDLY FUNNY, YOU-!!"
"Just shut up and come over," came the calm reply, and there was a click as he hung up. I stood there for a second while the dial tone played, letting his words digest before I finally hung up the phone. It was the simplest demand, and it wasn't like I never went to his house, yet I was incredibly happy as I skipped to my bedroom to get some things before I'd head over.
Never one to care too much about appearances, I simply ran a brush through my hair and fixed my eyeliner using the mirror in my bedroom. Then I grabbed Devil May Cry 3 - Matt had promised to help me finally beat it - and sauntered out the door, slinging my jacket over my shoulder and feeling totally kick-ass, for reasons I couldn't comprehend. Of course, no dramatic exit can ever go unscathed, and I tripped over my shoelace as soon as I made it out the door. Groaning, I stood up and brushed off my pants, then continued on my way.
My heart was beating at the speed of light by the time I made it to Matt's apartment door. This was odd; I'd never been so nervous before seeing him in the entire year we'd been friends. He's just a friend, after all, I thought sheepishly, Calm down, Ziv… Clenching my eyes shut, I Slowly raised my fisted hand in front of the door, then brought it down quickly to connect with - flesh?!
"Whoa, watch it!" an irritated voice scolded me and I snapped my eyes open to find Mello standing in the open doorway, having caught my fist in his hand to defend himself from the impending blow.
"Oh, sorry," I said, laughing sheepishly as he released my hand. See? Even Mello's still here. Nothing special, I told myself.
I followed Mello into the smoky apartment and flopped on the couch. He closed the door with his foot and said, "Matt's in the shower."
"Who said I was here to see Matt?" I said defensively.
He gave a short, almost sharp laugh and replied, "It's written all over your cherry-colored face. I'm not stupid, you know." I felt my face grow hot before he added, "Plus I heard him tell you on the phone."
I relaxed and laughed a little. Then Mello disappeared into the kitchen, probably to grab a chocolate bar or something. But after at least ten scary minutes of no Mello, I started to get Mello-in-the-kitchen-with-a-stove syndrome, and I had to see what he was doing. I shuffled quietly to the wall separating the small kitchen from the living room and peeked around the corner. A gasp escaped my mouth instantly when I saw what was on the other side; he was cutting up some food to put in a pot that was boiling on the stove. He was cooking.
He looked up sharply, alerted of my presence when I gasped. "What?" he snapped, gazing back down at the food.
"I can't believe you can cook," I answered, unable to keep the astonishment out of my voice. "What's the occasion?"
He looked down and brought bits of cut up food to the pot, then began stirring it in with whatever else was inside. "Matt can't cook worth a-" he started, but was interrupted by another male voice.
I whirled around to see just-out-of-the-shower Matt, with his wet clothes clinging to his body and his bangs pasted to his forehead. The sight of him like this rendered me speechless, and I was thrown into fan-girl heaven. I shouldn't have to say this, but there are definitely advantages in having hot guy friends.
"Why don't you guys go to the living room and let me do this in peace," Mello suggested, irritated.
"Yeah, yeah." Matt waved a hand over his shoulder lazily as he walked toward the living room. I shot a just-for-the-hell-of-it glare at Mello before following Matt. The redheaded teen was slouched over on the couch when I entered the room, and he held up the game I'd brought with me, which had been sitting on the coffee table.
"This yours?" he asked, studying the box.
"Yeah," I answered, "I'm totally stuck on it, I need your help."
"Ok, later. First we have to watch this." He set the game down and handed me a different case from a stack of games and DVDs. The cover was adorned with explicit images, and I recognized it instantly as a hentai.
"WHAT?!" I exclaimed, my eyes bugging out of my head. "AHH! I don't think so!" I closed my eyes tightly and shoved it back at him.
"Eh…?" He raised an eyebrow and looked at the profane movie case. "Oh, oops. Wrong one," he said, tossing the DVD aside and grabbing another one. He made sure to look at this one before handing it to me.
Just 'oops'…? I thought, and looked at the new DVD case presented to me. To my relief and delight, it was 30 Days of Night, which I'd been wanting to watch for a while.
"Yay!" I cheered, "You finally got it?!" I gave him a happy hug, which wouldn't have been quite so awkward if he had been standing up, and if Mello hadn't walked in at that perfect moment. So there I was, all over Matt and basically between his legs on the couch, when Mello walked in carrying a saran-wrapped dish of food.
The blonde simply quirked an eyebrow at us and announced, "I'm leaving. There's food in the kitchen, so don't try cooking." He set down the dish so he could put on his jacket, and I moved away from Matt awkwardly, taking a seat next to him on the couch.
"All right. See ya," Matt said, oblivious to my discomfort. He stood up and went to put the DVD in the player that rested in a cave underneath the TV.
Mello glided down the tiny hallway to the door, and I heard it close after he exited. However, it opened again a second later, and he called, "And I'll shoot your fricken hands off if either of you touch my chocolate!" Then the door slammed again, and the room settled into a deathly silence as I became uneasily aware of the fact that Matt and I were alone. In an apartment. Together.
The redhead was now sitting next to me again with the remote in his hand, skipping the previews on the movie.
"Why did Mello leave with food…?" I asked curiously, breaking the silence.
"You're guess is as good as mine," he answered with a shrug.
For a moment the silence I feared dominated again and I was about to pretend I had to pee, when the movie started and sound blared out of the speakers. I sighed in relief and made myself comfortable in the cushiony couch. The first ten minutes or so of the movie went uneventfully, but eventually someone got their neck chewed out (it was a vampire movie, after all), and naturally, I gasped my little lungs out. Matt snickered, and I glared at him.
"You can use me as a stress-ball if you get scared," he teased.
"I just might do that, Matt," I retorted. I could feel my face growing hot, and I scolded myself inwardly. What the hell is wrong with you, Ziv?! Cut it out, already! Then I noticed Matt staring at me. "What?!"
"You keep making these weird faces," he replied, smiling in amusement. "Are you sure you're not on drugs, Ziv?"
"As far as I know, I'm not…" I replied with a slight laugh.
We returned our attention to the movie, and soon I forgot all about my earlier discomfort. I was caught in the total bliss of just being me, and I didn't have to worry about what we were - friends? Or less? Or more? And when the movie finally ended, the plague of discomfort was still the furthest thing from my mind. I made Matt play some of Devil May Cry 3, and he ended up beating the whole damn thing with a supernatural ease and skill that most gamers rubbed lamps in an attempt to attain.
"There, see? It wasn't that hard," Matt said, stretching his arms in the air. I watched in amazement as he flipped the game off and put a new disk in.
"If you could bottle that talent, you could totally sell it on E-bay, Matt…"
He gave me an odd look and twapped me on the head as he sat back on the couch, offering me a controller. "Yeah, right. Like I'd sell it," he snorted. "Now, you ready to take me on?" he challenged, smirking as some two-player fighting game he'd been ranting about for weeks flashed a loading screen on the TV.
"You bet I am," I answered, "You're goin' down!"
After watching Matt totally kill Devil May Cry when I couldn't even get passed the second level, my competitive gear kicked in - there was no way in hell I'd let him beat me at this. Since I had never played this game before, however, beating him would be a difficult task whether he had supernatural gaming powers or not. When the screen displayed the different characters of the game while a booming voice demanded that we choose our virtual alter-egos, I had no clue which would be best to help me win. So, naturally, I chose the coolest looking one - which to me was a small girl with a giant sword and black angel wings (Hey, they say size can be deceiving, right?).
Ignoring Matt's manic laughter as he chose some giant bad-ass looking guy, I pressed the A button to confirm my decision…
Which apparently was the right one, because I was massacring Matt's Macho-Chacho within seconds. I watched with glee as his HP level dropped quicker than a dead body, and let some satisfactory evil laughter escape my own lips for a change.
"Take that, bitch!" I hooted, my fingers racing across the game-pad as my character beat the living shit out of Matt's poor damsel.
He grunted and leaned forward, pressing the buttons more rapidly and swearing under his breath. However, I could see that his efforts were in vain - his HP was nearing 0 fast, and mine was still more than half full.
"Just face it, Matt," I said, "You're no match for me at this game." I flashed a grin, but he still didn't say anything, which was odd. Normally when we played games he was full of cocky comebacks to my incessant remarks, but this time he hadn't said a thing the entire game.
I was about to give him the final blow I knew would finish him off, when everything froze and the screen was taken over by giant letters spelling out the word PAUSE.
"What the hell?!" I exclaimed, spinning to face the potential murder victim. No way did he just pause the game when I was about to become a freaking legend!
Instead of an answer to my outburst, I was surprised to find my fanatical, yet amazingly hot friend's face not a whisper from my own. I gasped despite myself and tried to back up, but I couldn't unless I wanted to fall head first onto the floor. I could feel his hot breath on my face, and I nearly shivered as he said dangerously, "Nobody beats me."
Flashing stars bashed me in the face as his lips touched mine, sending an electric jolt through my body. His tongue tickled my lip softly and my mouth opened slightly as I moaned, involuntarily.
But he pulled away then, and picked up his controller again. I sat in a daze, watching as he somehow managed to gain the upper hand and beat the hell out of my character in a matter of seconds. My conscience was bellowing at me to wake the hell up and smell the pixilated blood, but I couldn't even feel the controller in my hands, let alone use it.
My character fell to the ground with a pained groan and the startling game voice screamed "KNOCK OUT!", which finally shook me out of my trance. I looked at Matt in disbelief, and he smirked and tossed his controller onto the coffee table.
"What?" he asked while stretching his arms over his head, "You wanna play again?"
"You damn cheater!!" I threw aside my own controller and tackled him onto the couch.
GAME OVER
A/N: Thanks for reading!! XD
Right, about Ziv's name - I wanted to use something simple, and it took me forever to find something good enough. I was gonna use Siena, because I was trying to stick to a color name (Siena comes from some word for blue, I guess), but I changed my mind. Apparently "Ziv" means bright or radiant in Hebrew. (info from )